Establishing Professional EC Contacts Around the World!

First of all, welcome to my new colleagues from EDUC-6162-3 Issues and Trends in the Early Childhood Field.  I look forward to learning for each and every one of you over the next few weeks along with learning from Dr. Dartt.  This course is already shaping up to be no easy task.  Our first blog assignment was to begin the challenge of establishing profession early childhood contacts outside of the United States.  I set forth on the adventure very ambitious and optimistic.  I sent out a mass email to 46 colleagues generated from the Global Alliance list serve.  My email went as follows:

To whom it may concern,
My name is Julie Rand and I am a Transition/Transportation/Project
Specialist for an Early Childhood Program in Northern New York State.
I am halfway through my graduate studies with Walden University,
pursuing an Early Childhood Education degree with a focus in “teaching
adults in the Early Childhood field”.  My goal is to make contact with
early childhood professionals outside of the United States to assist
my growth and understanding of perspectives on issues and trends
currently happening in the early childhood education field.  These
issues and trends may be related to: the changing demographics and
diversity in society, poverty, economics, policies, and science,
and/or equity and excellence of care and education for children,
families, and the early childhood profession. While I know that you
are extremely busy, I am only hoping to establish occasional
communication with you (approximately once a week).  It is my hope to
learn about the work you do in education, the state of the early
childhood field in your country, your concerns, as well as your hopes
and dreams for young children.  I look forward to getting to know my
future colleagues from around the world!

As I waited and waited and waited for my wonderful responses, I began to realize that this task will not be as easy as I thought it would be.  I received 30 out of my 46 emails back as "undeliverable".  Now I know why the course instructor gave an alternative to the Part 1 blog assignment.  While I would love to give up trying, I am going to hang on for a little longer and wait and wait some more.  I will also continue to send some more emails to other professionals around the globe.  I hope to find 1 or 2 leads before my next blog!  Wish me luck! :)

As for my immersion into an early childhood organization's website, I chose to research more about the National Head State Association's website: www.nhsa.org.  I chose this website because I work for Head Start and I have not yet dove into this site.  I think that by choosing the Head Start website, it will not only help me grow during this current course, but also in my current professional career with Head Start.  I look forward to learning more during these next 8 weeks!